Some Watch Dogs 2 Season Pass content set free

Ubisoft has announced that some of the Watch Dogs 2 content that was intended to be locked away behind a payment wall will in fact be offered to all owners for free.

Team-based PvP mode Showdown was initially supposed to be part of the paid No Compromise expansion, but will now be a free download for everyone. Also included in the free update is new multiplayer functionality for drone motocross and eKart racing, and new randomly generated loot truck events.

Other parts of No Compromise, such as the additional story missions, are not affected.

Those who have already paid for No Compromise – and remember, the Watch Dogs 2 Season Pass was put on sale before any content had even been announced – will now get some extra outfits and missions that were not originally planned in as part of the Season Pass.

Ubisoft has said that it changed its plans in an effort to keep the game’s multiplayer population as high as possible. After all, a strong multiplayer community is key for the game’s potential long-term appeal, and locking new online features away from existing players isn’t going to help that.

There are two main drivers behind making Showd0wn free for all of our players,” Watch Dogs 2’s live producer Kris Young said. The first is that we want everyone to be able to participate and play it. We really wanted to have as many people as possible playing the mode for a better challenge, better matchmaking time and quality, and a healthier, more active community.

The other is community feedback we’ve received since we announced the original plans. Our community asked for more multiplayer content, and that’s also a reason why we’ve decided to make Showd0wn accessible for free for all players, while replacing it with more single-player content in No Compromise.”

Watch Dogs 2’s No Compromise DLC will be released on PS4 on April 18th and on Xbox and PC on May 18th.